The Harriot Family: Audrey's Birth Story: Part 2

Lacey woke up at 1am to one extremely painful contraction.

Fearing that it was caused by her body trying to work out the last of the pitocin she worked through a couple contractions on her own.

She was experiencing intense and painful back labor with contractions that were consistently 15 minutes apart.

She decided to wake up Brandon between 1:30 and 2:00 because she couldn't find a comfortable position to labor through and wanted someone to apply pressure to her lower back.

Around 3:45 she told Brandon to go back to sleep because she knew he would need all the rest he could get before Audrey came.

At 4am, when another contraction came on, I woke up to an irate Lacey demanding I get up and rub her back.

It was dark, and I may have uttered something about a big angry gray blob yelling at me, but I jumped up, and I applied that pressure.

She explained after her contraction had subsided what had been going on, and we found the only comfortable position she could find, which consisted of her laying on top of me with her back to my chest and a heating pad/pillow combination so that I could squeeze her hips together when she felt a contraction come on.

We laid like that for three and a half hours while Lacey passed out between contractions and I googled every article I could about pitocin and how long contractions should last after they stop administering.

Everything I found said that contractions should stop within an hour or two completely.

SO!

This meant that Lacey was in super real extra awesome labor.

Or as Lacey would call it now, the labor from hell.

I think both work.

I texted our Mom around 7:30 requesting that she wake up and get me coffee, as I had a 10 month pregnant lady holding me down.

When she finally wandered out 30 minutes later we brought her up to speed and downloaded a contraction tracking app!

That little thing was extra handy and let us know that Lacey's contractions had moved from 15 minutes apart to 10 minutes!

Everything kind of blurs together for the morning and the afternoon.

I didn't take any pictures until later that evening, cause I totally forgot in the moment.

We went on a couple of short walks.

Lacey hated those, because they brought her contractions up to 4 minutes apart and the back labor she was experiencing was extremely intense.

Between the walks she took 2 showers and tried to eat a sandwich and drink some water.

The showers slowed her contractions a bit and eased the pain, she couldn't keep any of the food down though.

Around 4pm our parents had officially decided that they would leave the NEXT morning IF she hadn't been admitted to the hospital.

Lacey's contractions had gone from an inconsistent 4-10 minutes apart to a very consistent 7 minutes at that time and Brandon called the hospital to let them know what was going on and see what their recommendation was.

Lacey was in lots of pain and was having a hard time supporting herself and breathing.

They told him to wait, and not to come in till she'd been having contractions 4-5 minutes apart for at least 1 hour.

So I started taking photos.

This was it.

Her hips and back hurt.

In between contractions she would sit on a chair or a birthing ball and the second she started to feel her muscles tightening we would help her stand, hold her up, and apply deep pressure to her hips and back.

It really helped her focus to be told when she was halfway through a contraction (they lasted about one and a half minutes each) and to have someone breathing with her as a reminder.

We all took turns, as each job was physically and emotionally taxing in it's own right.

It's really hard to watch someone you love be in so much pain.

All the while, her contractions were getting longer and closer together.

Audrey wasn't super fond of all those contractions either and started fighting back at the end of each one, causing muscle spasms for her poor Mama in the meantime!

Diesel and Layla spent a lot of time worrying about Mama and being close for support.

It was so incredibly sweet.

They are both pretty vivacious dogs, so this was definitely odd behavior for them!

This photo kills me every time.

It perfectly describes how all of us were feeling while watching Lacey make the physical sacrifices necessary to be a Mother.

It's such a powerful thing.

At 8:30 that evening Brandon and I looked at each other.

Lacey had been contracting for 30 minutes at 4 minutes apart.

We knew the hospital said to wait until it had been an hour, but it was time.

There was no comfortable positions, no relief, and one extremely tired Mama to be.

So we packed everything up in a hurry and headed to the hospital.

When we arrived they put Lacey in a triage room instead of admitting her.

When they checked her, they informed her that she was at 2-3 centimeters dialated and "not in active labor" therefore they couldn't admit her.

The urge to punch a nurse was strong with this one.

Especially as your watching your sister and wife cry in pain every 4 minutes for 2 minutes straight.

They agreed to let her stay in the triage room when Brandon and I said we couldn't take her home.

They offered her help in the form of pain medication and anti nausea meds.

She said yes, dear God please yes.

Once she was medicated, her contractions slowed down to around 7 minutes apart, and she passed out between them.

Brandon and I spent that time shoveling food that my parents had provided into our faces as fast as we could so that we weren't eating in front of the nauseous Mom to be.

On the pain meds she felt very dizzy and out of it, so whenever she had a contraction we would have to lift her to the end of the bed and take our supportive positions.

She could still feel every contraction as if she were un medicated but was at least getting a little bit of sleep in between.

3 hours later, when the morphine and anti nauseau started to wear off, they checked again to see if she was progressing.

She was officially at a solid 3cm dialated and they were willing to admit her even though she still wasn't "actively laboring".

They've really gotta come up with a different phrase.

So they moved us to a different labor room (the one she wanted cause it was purple!) and got her all set up with an IV and fluids.

She hadn't been able to hold anything down all day, and hadn't eaten much the day prior due to the failed inducement.

They inquired as to how the pain meds had worked and we let them know they hadn't actually done much for the pain, so they tried another mix that worked 1,000x better!

This happened to slow her contractions down to 15 minutes apart and she was able to get some good rest inbetween.

If you call being rendered unconscious "good rest".

But hey, at least one of us was sleeping, and what better person than the lady who had to push a baby out of her later!

Unforunately for Brandon and I, we weren't able to sleep.

The meds worked way better, but she could still feel every contraction, just halfway through them now.

So she would wake up from a dead sleep in excruciating pain at which point we couldn't move her.

So Brandon and I stayed awake and watched her contraction monitor.

When we would see that contraction start to rise we would hook one arm underneath her arms and one arm underneath her legs and lift her into a criss cross applesauce position at the end of her bed.

She would wake up shortly after and we'd have to remind her to breathe through the contractions.

Anytime she was awake she would beg for an epidural.

Something she had said she didn't want, but after 2 days of labor was demanding.

Her nurses had told us that she had to be dilated to at LEAST 4cm before they would consider it.

So from 11:30 to 6:30 am, we waited, and lifted, and applied pressure, and reassured, and breathed, and supported, and worked until all of our muscles gave out and we felt like we couldn't do it anymore.

Around 3:30am Lacey decided that she wanted direct eye contact through every contraction.

I mentioned to Brandon during one of her unconscious moments that I thought she may be trying to place herself inside one of our bodies to escape the pain, or at least that's what it felt like while she was boring into our souls with her eyeballs.

She is absolutely amazing and stronger than she even realizes.

When the nurse checked her at 6:30am she had the AMAZING news that she had dilated to 4cm and I'm pretty positive we all screamed epidural at the same time.

They advised against it because they thought it may "slow down" the labor process.

We advised that we no longer cared.

When the anesthesiologist came in to set everything up and go over the pros and cons Lacey mentioned that she was having terrible back labor.

"Oh, epidurals don't help with back labor."

I'm pretty sure she left the room immediately because of the penetrating death stare I supplied.

So I spent 20 minutes reassuring Lacey while they set up that my epidural had worked on my back labor and that she was just some stupid nurse who deserved to be punched in her dumb baby maker and that she should just continue walking right on out of the hospital and that I wished a 2 week labor upon her and all of her future offspring.

I think it made Lacey feel better.

If you've never been around for an epidural placement it goes something like this...

Force the pregnant lady to sit criss cross applesauce, chin to chest and rolled forward as much as possible.

Then sit still during a contraction while the angel of an anesthesiologist provides sweet relief in spinal catheter form.

I love that man, and I wasn't even the one contracting.

They laid Lacey back in her bed to let the epidural do it's work evenly throughout her body and Brandon and I stood at the foot of her bed watching intently.

We were officially at 27 hours of no sleep and LOTS of work and were praying that this epidural helped Lacey get some much needed pain relief and rest.

After 20 minutes she was feeling ZERO PAIN!

We all took a nap.

A well deserved 1 hour unconsciousness is probably a better description of what we did.